warpedrealm010's Xanga

Funny - Re entry

Tue, 28 Nov 2006 05:41:35 GMT

Funny, the last time I posted here was over a year ago. To be precise, a year and a half. Looking back over the old entries, I wonder why I was so abstinant against the use of proper punctuation.

So why am I here again?

Interesting question. I'm not quite sure I can answer that yet. Though one could be that the reason that I moved to another blog service no longer applies. My school has now blocked xanga, livejournal, and blogspot. Somewhat annoying, especially when legit organizations use it as their web base, but what can one do?

A lot has changed though.

I am no longer the frightened child who would run to darkened corners. No longer the rebel who eschewed punctuation. Still confused though. Quite confused always where the world is concerned. So, why am I here? I'm not sure, except in the year I was gone, xanga has sure gotten more user friendly. And now that I am here, I may or may not stay. There is a certain track laid with blogging every thought and whim and a compunction towards public displays. Curious and dangerous at the same time. Plus, I may revert to my old habits of writing for the purpose of confusing. That certainly would not be a favorable change as I enter into the next phase of public education.

So toodles. Who knows, I may drop in again sometime. Now that I actually remember what the password is. :)

Monday, April 04, 2005

Mon, 04 Apr 2005 04:20:36 GMT

hmm... no one even visits... how sad... *sob*

going crazy with school and stuff...
but...

http://www.aurialstudios.com

Saturday, January 15, 2005

Sat, 15 Jan 2005 02:58:00 GMT

Move

I have moved myself to a new xanga www.xanga.com/aurialis

I will most likely NOT be posting on either this or my old public xanga, nor will I be posting as constantly as I used to have done.

I hope you all come visit me in my new home *nod*

- ara -- signs off . . .

Wednesday, December 29, 2004

Wed, 29 Dec 2004 19:44:00 GMT

does manners really matter?

Do people actually notice if you tilt your soap bowl away from you? Or whether or not you know how to leave your plate after you're done (fork and knife and/or spoon horizontally placed across the plate or bowl)? Or how about having both hands on the table and your left hand holding the plate or whatever? Have you ever found yourself noticing, oh, that kid has both hands on the table, what a polite and well cultured child that must be. Hmm?

Sure it looks nice to actually look like you're eating, and being quiet, and acting nice, but do people actually notice?

Tuesday, December 28, 2004

Tue, 28 Dec 2004 23:45:24 GMT

380 days!

Choice

Everything is a choice. Every event was chosen into being, every life created from choices, every path made by choices. The forks in the road occur every single second of our lives. Sometimes we say, that oh we didn't have a choice. But don't we? There's just more obvious choices, and choices that wouldn't be worth choosing, but in the end, there is that one that you choose. Maybe the act of choosing lasts no longer than a split second, our minds just automatically carrying out our choice for us. Like I could stop typing right here and now and back there a sentence before this, but I'm not done talking so that choice doesn't quite make sense.

If you know me in real life, you would probably know that my life at home isn't all that jolly or wonderful. If you've met my family, you would probably think at best that we're weird and somewhat estranged from one another, at worst that we're all just mentally disturbed in various ways and should all be sent to see professionals, separately. I've complained to my friends about their obsession with perfection and grades, and some of them urge me to rebell. To do things like get them to sign my schedule sheet then change it to other classes, or just tell them (or from one of my more un-self-concious friends, tell them off), and various other schemes and scenarios. Yet I wouldn't even think of doing any of them, even after having these ideas handed to me on a plate by my "helpful" friends. I've even told them, that I just didn't have a choice. But that's not right is it?

Everyone has a choice, there are choices everywhere, what happens and who we are are just an accumulation of those choices. I could choose to tell my parents, I'd also have to suffer through the several hours long lectures ranging from calmly loudly speaking to outright screaming. I could deceive them by changing my classes around, but I don't really mind too much the classes that I'm taking, not enough that I would like to give them an excuse to shout at me. The point is, even though it feels like I have no choices, I do. Just no viable ones. If I was a different person, I would have different choices open to me. Just like my friends that thought up these ideas for me, they could come up with them because they could think of choosing to act like that. Without their help, I would not have even thought of them or considered their advice. They were choices that didn't seem to exist for me. Even knowing them I still wouldn't choose them, but you know what, I have made some choices. I made a choice to not choose them.

We think of choices as something we're going to decide and do. But choices are much more prevalent then that. Choosing no, of inaction, the thinking that goes on in our heads that we're usually not even aware of, is more important to who we are than making choices to act on.

Tuesday, December 28, 2004

Tue, 28 Dec 2004 23:17:46 GMT

rainy day

let the rain fall down
all around
all around me
let the sky fall down
upon the dirt
down to the ground
amethysts dropping on the ground
blue pearls in chocolate mousse
pebbles beating up white froth

a drumming overhead
wakes me up in my bed
brilliant blue floods my sight
open my eyes to a grayed world
of beating drums
falling all around me
treasures of heavens
for the most priceless gift
of them all
the gift of life
falling all around
down to the ground

some may think that
the barrier of water
outside is a horror undefined
to be confined from the world
on the whim of drops of sky
heaven's droppings falling down
to smear earth's surface
destroying the labored order
disrupting the light of life

yet a comfortable reminder
that its not all the same
the wind is blowing
to bring about change
a rainy day
a different day
a sort of wonder
to come about

jewels of light falling from high
joy of life sent to earth
from heaven in the sky
drops of pearls amethyst lights
heaven sent to our humble
dirt grown homes

Tuesday, December 14, 2004

Tue, 14 Dec 2004 05:01:59 GMT

rite aid

I don't know what it is with my mom but she seems to always have to be the one in control. She got completely mad at me yesterday at Rite Aid when all I wanted to do was go in, buy what I needed to, and get back out so she could get to work on time. Instead she decided to spend time screaming at me. And yet today we went back again, and she bought a bunch of stuff for me that I hadn't even planned on getting, just because I was talking with her I guess?

So now I have a bunch of makeup stuff that I don't even really know how to use. Sometimes I feel that she just wants opportunities to show off. Which begs the question. Do we ever really grow up? But that's for another time.

Monday, December 13, 2004

Mon, 13 Dec 2004 02:54:41 GMT

submitted the following to an essay livegrader on the Princeton Review website http://princetonreview.com/college/testprep/testprep.asp?TPRPAGE=2090&adcode=20385

Right and Wrong

The growing problem of music pirating has long since troubled the music industries as the advancements of technology continues. Though our new world of technological skyscrapers and wired connections allow us to do much more than we would have been able to in any other day and age, this problem of pirating is nothing new to human society. The music industy itself has named their problem as pirating after the old roaming sea thieves.

Stealing another person's essay and submitting it as your own is wrong. Copying off another person's test is wrong. However when you get to sharing answers on homework assignments, the lines between right and wrong starts to get foggy. Some would argue that students are not learning anything if they simply give one another the answers, while yet others would argue that through the sharing of answers is how students learn the most. By sharing and comparing answers, they would be able to uncover themselves whether their answers are right or wrong, whether or not they truly understood the material. Yet the easiest way to dissuade between whether or not sharing is right or wrong is whether or not the students had finished all the problems themselves already before the act of sharing.

Downloading off the internet is like stealing someone else's essay. You're taking something that you have given nothing in return for. It is not fair for the people who have put in the effort to make this product or the people that respect the boundaries and pay for that product. Supporters of downloads may complain that they download only to listen to how the songs sound like before they buy the cds themselves, so that they wouldn't spend money on a product that they would grow to despise. Yet there are numerable sites that allow you to listen to the beginning or even the entire song online to help you decide whether or not you truly like the music.

The same is true for another growing problem of net piracy, plagiarism. Getting something from the internet doesn't make it right just because it doesn't happen to be copyrighted. All it has done is make the process of thievery easier. As with everything else in life, you must give in order to receive. Even if it does not currently seem that way, it may just be that the price has already been paid or will be another day. Take for example the people that rely on plagiarism as their way to get through all work in their lives, there will be a day when the work they must accomplish cannot be saved by copying another person's hard labored product.

The shady portion of music piracy is the copying done on cds. Many people copy their storebought cds onto blank ones or onto their computers as backups. Part of the problems is how easily cds get broken. Just picking them up and putting them in and out of cases and players can get scratches on them. Playing them can wear them out until they stop working. Dropping them can scratch or break them entirely and the disk itself could be easily broken. Heat can cause them to melt, moisture can cause corrosion. And then there's the high cost of a replacement if any of those things were to happen. Making a backup seems like the only reasonable thing to do.

However selling copies for profit is like cheating on a test. It's like selling the answers to a test. Yet giving them to friends, not for profit, but just because of friendship. That doesn't seem quite as wrong. And then what would be the difference between that and giving someone a mix of a couple different songs on a cd? If your friend really liked the music enough to buy a cd, wouldn't they have already done so? What if the cd one of your friends wanted isn't being sold anymore? This last gray area, unclear because it really depends on each individual situation you are put in.

Although I personally dislike the idea of people copying others work in any form, I do create backup cds and for many, just use the copy to ensure that nothing happens to the original. I have also had friend give me copies of their favorite artists and ending up going out and buying the original, but then I've also had some that reconfirmed my general desire to avoid that genre of music.

However what is wrong is still wrong. We share to exchange ideas and find faults in our owns, to grow and learn. Just because we now share with a wider audience that we may not be able to see and hear does not change that. Just because we cannot see the person behind an essay on the net does not give us the right to take it, even if it has not been copyrighted. If the mask of anonymity is removed and the essay was lying on a desk out in the open for all to read, without a name to claim ownership, taking it is still stealing, using it as your own is still cheating. Even if all our technological advances have only served to allow us an avenue with which we find it easier to commit these crimes of stealing and cheating, we all feel inside that we're not doing something right.

Monday, December 06, 2004

Mon, 06 Dec 2004 23:36:48 GMT

gray light

wind rushes by my ear
chilling my skin reddish white
sting of frost upon my cheeks
looking up at the gray skies
just a page of gray
spread across the sky
as if enclosing us
beneath its grasps as if
suffocating out the life below
a gray blanket covering life
below waiting out the cold
open your windows
spread wide the doors
think not of the cold
but the freshness of the air
without the usual smog
of heavy smoke and grog
as all the busy people
are in their wooden houses
burning up gases and lighting fires
outside its not dark
but light of another kind
when the sun shines directly down
it blinds the eyes
driving all into darkness
but when winter spreads its cloak
there are details never noticed before
here and there all around
lay intricate beauty
and hidden subleties
unseen before
just as a diamond is dazzling
under bright lights
its even more entrancing
when the lights are few

wish it would snow . * . * . * .
((.ps there should be little points of snow floating down the screen as part of this layout, but I couldn't get it working. arghh stupid xanga keeps changing my html.. this should be smaller... but it isn't, so now it's going to be italicized instead!.))

Saturday, December 04, 2004

Sat, 04 Dec 2004 05:05:41 GMT

355 days woot!

the control of grades

I hate the degree with which my grades and school in general controls my life. I got my test score in chemistry back today and to my surprise I actually got an A, and by my calculations that will put my grade at the brink of almost an A. Now I just need to do something similar for my spanish class and not completely pull down my math grade.

However that is not the point. The point is that my emotions and state of mental being is for the most part controlled by other people, be it that they're ignoring me or I'm getting less than satisfactory grades (per my parent's expectations) despite all that I'm doing to avoid that connection. A week ago I failed the first version of this test, but so many people did so bad on it that our teacher decided to let us do a retake of it. After taking that first test I felt horribly depressed and kept going back over it, over and over again. Even though I had told myself before that grades and scores did not matter that much I couldn't stop myself.

Today one of my friends found out that he did not do as well on this same chemistry test and I'm fairly certain that he's kind of depressed right now. Also today at lunch, somehow one of my friends had heard that our teacher was passing tests back started questioning me and becoming really nervious. My best friend overheard her and became extremely upset when we were talking about the multiple choice section and we told her that it was 20 problems long, she thought that she had only done half since she had not gone to the back. She soon started talking to herself and decided that she must have done it but forgotten, since she normally has above normal memory for remembering various details that I find obsolete, this seemed like just a form of self denial. However even if it was just self denial, it worked and she calmed down somewhat. During this course of her self discussion, I was smiling somewhat, because I was still wrapped up in my own relief of getting a pretty good score (for this class anyways), and she asked me what I was smiling about in an accusation sort of way. I told her it was just relief, but she had felt that I was smiling because I had done better than her, but I had really felt nothing of that sort. Neither of them ate much of anything at lunch today.

I on the other hand had just recently lost my appetite during the time the teacher handed out tests, and promptly recovered it after I found out my score and decided that I had done ok. Kicked my cousin's backpack when we were walking away from class because he felt a need to gloat that he had gotten a higher score than I had.

So if what I got on a test was powerful enough to cause me to immediately have physical effects, then it's little surprise that grades can affect mental states. But why is there such an importance of grades and scores that they would affect our own bodies to such a degree? Tests and grades don't really show if we would be able to get along with other people. They don't show our personalities or the real depths of our abilities. They aren't necessarily the key to our success in the "real" world. They seem more like a competition of children of who can memorize more facts and numbers over these years and see how we compete against each other on a test. It seems virtually pointless unless you wanted to create a race of people that are perpetually competing against each other on memorizational skills.

Though you may think and say that that is actually more of an Asian style of learning and schools. While that is true, however even schools in the western world are fundamentally pretty much the same way. We may call it different names, we may be doing it in a different form, but when it comes down to it. That's pretty much all we're doing. Of course there are exceptions, but most kids? They just cram a bunch of material in a few days before the test or on the day before the test depending on their "smartness". How is it any different from Asian cram schools? Except that one is provided by the school and the other just rises by overall popular usage by its students.

Hasn't anyone wondered why inventions and miracle cures aren't as rampantly occuring as they used to? It's not because all good ideas have been used up, no there's plenty more out there. It's because people do not have the same creativity as they used to. Instead of educated and helping children develope their creativity and teaching them to learn on their own, schools are merely beating out the creativity that is inherent in children. Instead of creating thinkers and inventors and problem solvers, all schools are doing now are churning out millions of fact reciting drones. And in the Western world, we don't even have an excuse. For the Asian culture, this is how they've always taught and learned, for the Western culture, we're mimicking the wrong system.

Though memorizing is faster and seems to be more effective, but its really of no use. However they are what are relied on more and more as a measure of proficiency in schools, and college admittance for higher educations. So people who have better memorization skills have it made, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they understand the concepts that they can recite from thin air. And it creates situations where there are people that spend almost all their time memorizing all the facts and figures that they can in order to score high on the tests for college admittance, and they end up having no social skills and little creativity. It is also a main cause in the rising numbers of teenage depression and other assorted mental illnesses. These illnesses usually go undiscovered until later on in life, however you will find that most of the high society personas don't go to psychiatrists because they have the money and they can, but because they have problems, and most of them stemming from their childhood and teenage years.

Though you may say, I'm just a kid and don't understand. Maybe its my unique perspective that leads me to say this. But I find it horribly funny that our world is obsessed with the ideas of making an artificial intelligence when we strive to make our children into human drones.